Social and education legislation and policy internationally are underpinned by the expectation that educators remove barriers to learning, emphasize inclusion, and improve access for all learners (e.g. European Union, European Education Area; UNESCO, Sustainable Development Goal 4). Research on inclusive education (Ainscow, 2022; Bešić, 2020) highlights that a shift is required from ideas of inclusive education that focus on disability, to more broadly encompassing perspectives associated with diversity framed by social justice and underpinned by theories of intersectionality and equity. Extensive investment has provided support to assist teachers to adopt these inclusive education approaches, and yet institutional (government, school) systems and traditions, along with public discourse can undermine the intent and efforts of teachers (Florian, 2021; Jensen 2018). For teachers tensions exist where on the one hand policies advocate for ‘education for all’ yet the system reflects a ‘deficit’ model through funding approaches that are focused on the individual student and their particular needs. 

As initial teacher educators we, like colleagues internationally (see European Journal of Teacher Education, Vol43, 2020, Special Issue on Inclusive Education), are responding to the challenge to consider inclusive education in its broadest sense. We have a professional responsibility to ensure pre-service teachers can “respect the diversity of [learners] heritage, language, identity, and culture; … and… promote inclusive practices to support the needs of all learners” (Education Council, 2017, p.10).  This aligns with the requirements to become (provisionally) registered teachers and is paralleled across European contexts and in the rhetoric of education policies. Our aim is to develop student’s critical thinking and awareness about diversity, engage students in self-reflection of their privilege and positionality within a diverse society, and present pedagogical practices that enable equitable education ‘for all’. To do this we have developed a paper/course Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing that is framed by intersectionality and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). As Banks (2023) notes teachers need access to ‘the conversation’ about diversity and inclusion to develop inclusive practices and to change systems that segregate students. This reflects the systemic approach that Guðjónsdóttir & Óskarsdóttir (2020) note is needed given that ‘teachers alone cannot be held responsible for inclusive practices’ when the conditions of schools and broader educational frameworks do not reflect diversity in the broadest sense. 

The redevelopment of the 1-year (graduate/postgraduate) initial teacher education programmes offered at the University of Waikato, the Graduate Diploma in Teaching (GDipT) and parallel Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching (PGDipT), provided the opportunity to examine what teaching and learning opportunities support teaching students to enact diversity/intersectionality as inclusive and differentiated practice and pedagogies. Broadly we are framing our work as developing activist (Sachs, 2001), transformative (Mockler, 2005) professionals who are aware and able to work effectively towards developing schools that are places of diversity and are inclusive ‘of all’. Underpinned this is a commitment to social justice as a goal and a process (Bell, 2016), we drew on socio-cultural perspectives (Wenger, 1998) in acknowledging that knowing, doing, and thinking does not reside with the individual student teacher, but is site specific, temporal, and distributed across the ecological arrangements in which pre-service teachers learn and practice.

In line with the work of Florian (2012), who examined on course reforms for a similar one-year Postgraduate ITE programme in Scotland, the aim of this study was to better understand ‘How ITE curriculum and pedagogical practices (including assessments) focused on diversity, intersectionality, and differentiated practice, support pre-service teachers to develop as critical, activist, transformative professionals (effective disruptors) who can enact inclusive education in their practices as teachers?’ 

This paper reports on a case study designed to better understand how the course titled Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing supported pre-service teachers in ways that positioned them to enact inclusive education in their practices as teachers, both in their own classes and in the school more widely. Data were drawn from collegial conversations between the teaching team, student paper evaluations, field notes and student responses generated during workshop interactions (responses recorded on Padlet forums, through Zoom chats, and as dialogue), and course materials including paper planning and student assessments. The participants included the staff that made up the teaching team (as participant researchers) and students enrolled in the GradDip and Postgrad Dip Teaching, at a University in Aotearoa New Zealand, during 2022/23. The student cohort was made up of pre-service post graduate primary and secondary students, who were studying in face to face, as well as distance (online) iterations of the programmes. The research was approved by the University of Waikato’s Human Research Ethics Committee. Thematic analysis was used for developing, analysing, and interpreting patterns across a data set (Braun & Clarke, 2022), and viewed and reviewed as part of peer debriefing (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Thematic analysis was support by inductive approach to the case study to identify important themes and patterns within the data (Joffe, 2012). Throughout the data analysis process, we maintained an audit trail through analytic memos in a shared researcher journal to document the process through which themes were developed.

We found that the paper Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing has been a ‘beginning’ for many students in their development as activist, transformative professionals. This was evidenced by their ability to recognise diversity amongst their peers, and the students they were teaching. While most students were able to enact inclusive education in regard to gender, and academic level, using modifications to their pedagogical practices, the ability to plan for inclusion associated with other ways of thinking about diversity (sexuality, culture/ethnicity, impairment, neurodiversity, or social class) was less evident. Adopting an intersectional lens was challenging when the attitudes of our colleagues across the ITE programme, along with mentor teachers and school leaders reflected less inclusive approaches, which left pre-service teachers feeling unable to challenge the ableism, sexism, and racism behaviours they observed. Equally a UDL approach, while embraced by this student cohort, was difficult to consider enacting when school systems, programmes, and assessment practices continue to be framed by traditions of practice, and therefore limited opportunities to utiliseUDL alongside planning focused on the localised and differentiated needs of the learners. While challenged by the learning opportunities and assessment task presented in the paper, this cohort of students appeared to have a limited ability to enact diversity at anything more than a superficial level making their pursuits to generate a more socially just educational experience for all learners a long-term goal. While it would be easier to prioritise a focus on practices and pedagogies narrowly framed on specific pedagogies of inclusion (aligned with special education) in ITE papers, it is more pressing to create spaces for critical dialogue, contesting of ideas, and promotion of social justice and intersectionality framed approaches like UDL in ITE courses, as a way to recognise the change agents new teachers can be.

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